This sounds lik another dot-com boondoggle, with Wall Street and the big players looking to fleece small investors. How in the world is this supposed to work? While I can see some usefulness in having data standards for schools and districts, I don’t see what good this is for entire states and especially between states. Just how useful is attendance data between school X is Utah and school Y is Georgia? And is there any proof that one can reliably tailor math lessons to a kids absentee or discipline record?

To answer my question, at least somewhat, I think whether Gates & Co. understand it or not (and they likely don’t, not fully anyway) they are constraining the definition of education to what can be provided and evaluated by a computer. I suspect they plan to collect all of this information, and then look for correlations they deem useful to their vision of education. Slowly but surely, the only activities that will pass under this regime will be those that can be correlated.

Subjects like art, literature, and music will likely be very limited under this system. Writing and reading likely will be very limited too, since I doubt these systems will have any ability to find correlations that include the sort of nuanced thinking that is essential to critical reading and writing. Science too will suffer, although perhaps not as much directly as indirectly given the highly fact oriented nature of K-12 science programs; nevertheless, the lack of ability to reliably handle nuanced thinking will also hurt the sciences.

As I’ve written earlier, we’re coming to the threshold of the educational system that the industrialists of the late 19th wanted for Americans–A rudimentary training that gave the country passive workers who would not challenge the monied classes for political power. A few will make it to the elite secondary institutions; the drop-outs will head for the military or prison; and the rest will scrounge for work.

Those of us who value public education have to provide a better vision for our public education, one that emphasizes the development of intellect and justice in Robert Maynard Hutchins’s claim that “The best education for the best is the best education for all.” We need to let go of the gooey, syrupy, sentimental platitudes that have so burdened education since the late ‘sixties, and move to an education that will give us sound citizens and thinkers.

From the article:
“The privacy discussion is an important one, but one of my concerns is it’s preventing the discussion of what’s going on in the classroom. Are we preparing the children for the future? Do we have the tools to prepare them for the jobs of tomorrow?”

Pay no attention to what is going on behind the curtain….it is all about what is going on in the classroom.
Yeah, got it.

Let’s also look at it from a humanity perspective. My child is more than a number and that’s what this excessive data collection is all about.
As a teacher, I never looked at a child’s data before they entered my classroom. I wanted to know them for who they were at that moment. And I wanted to invite them into our community of learning. In this process, I’d collect that “data” I needed to work with them, but it was always within the respect of their humanity and our learning community. What part of their personality helped them in the learning process and what part got in the way.

As parents will we need these data systems to raise our children or are we constantly looking at our children and working through who they are and where we need to take them? I don’t doubt that all parents spend a lot of time watching their children and know alot about who their children are. They use this “data” to work on helping their child function in this world. Often, when I’m struggling with one of my children’s “issues,” I’ll consult books, and experienced parents who have gone through these stages etc.

Learning is not so cut and dry. It is not linear. Often giving a child with “behavior” issues a fresh start provided that child with a desire to do things differently. And when I started to see things I needed more help with, I’d then go to previous teachers etc. and learn from them. It wasn’t until the end of my time in the classroom where we were being forced to make this data insanity our everything about the children we were working with that I realized I couldn’t do it any more. This data is FLAWED!!
Here is a GREAT article by one of our most brilliant educator leaders, Deborah Meier http://deborahmeier.com/2013/03/12/buried-in-data/

I read that Randi Weingarten is a member (board?) of this organization. If true her sellout of teachers starting with the 2005 contract (loss of seniority transfers, establishment of the ATR pool) continues. What else must she do to convince public ed supporters that she is not an ally? Also recall she helped negotiate the Wash. D.C. contract that allowed “failed” teachers to be fired resulting in over 200 teachers losing their jobs over meaningless teacher evaluation methodology imposed by Rhee.

Nothing is free. Schools already received RTTT $ in return for data. RTTT is stimulus money. Some of my details could be wrong however stimulus money (RTTT) was used to encourage & aid the development of interoperable databases. We’re creating new data & warehousing it. It’s not a national database (yet).

How does this stimulate the economy? Through “innovative” apps aligned to CCSS.

We have stimulated an economy that depends on student data that is non-consensually shared with vendors.

How is this legal? US ED had to redefine FERPA definitions. They expanded the definition of school official in 2008. That wasn’t enough to make the SLC legal.

Paul Gammill, who replaced LeRoy Rooker was ushered out the door & subsequently filed a whistle blower lawsuit when he said US ED can’t do what they’re doing without Congress.

I have left this comment many times in many articles for the boys. I am informing parents as well:

Dear Mr. Klein:

I am an educator and a parent and I don’t embrace anything being promoted and sold by you or Murdoch. You do not care about children, teaching and learning. You care about profits, profits, profits.

Stay away from our children. I don’t trust anyone associated with a company that hacked into the cell phone of a missing, murdered 13 year old.

I will collect and track student results the old fashioned way. I will get to know each of my students as individuals with dreams, strengths, goals and opinions. We will create individual portfolios with writing samples and journal entries. We will read fiction, non fiction, memoirs, news articles, essays, short stories,
poems. We will share ideas, opinions and create long term projects: research, book trailers, original plays, book blogs, etc.

As a teacher it is my responsibility to be data informed NOT data driven. I promise you I will not waste time staring at a computer, tablet or wireless device.

Instead I will look at my students and see and hear them. So, I will tell you now I take a pass on your “digital learning tools” and instead I will use my brain, my instincts and my 26 years of teaching experience to guide me, something the faux reformers (you, Rhee, Bloomberg, Bush, etc) know nothing about.

Here is more background information I compiled on Rupert Murdoch’s foray into Big Education Profiteering, from mid-2011.

Hope it is helpful in spotlighting how Murdoch, Jeb Bush, Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein, Bill Gates, Eli Broad, et. al., have been building the groundwork for this heist of our kids’ privacy, along with their educational future.

The Teacher Student Data Link (TSDL) is one facet of a data gathering campaign funded at $390,493,545 between 2005 and mid-May 2011 by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This campaign envisions the link between teacher and student data serving eight purposes: 1. Determine which teachers help students become college-ready and successful, 2. Determine characteristics of effective educators, 3. Identify programs that prepare highly qualified and effective teachers, 4. Assess the value of non-traditional teacher preparation programs, 5. Evaluate professional development programs, 6. Determine variables that help or hinder student learning, 7. Plan effective assistance for teachers early in their career, and 8. Inform policy makers of best value practices, including compensation. See http://www.dataqualitycampaign.org/about
The TSDL system is intended to ensure that all courses are based on standards, and that all responsibilities for learning are assigned to one or more “teachers of record” in charge of a student or class. A teacher of record has a unique identifier (think barcode) for an entire career in teaching. A record is generated whenever a teacher of record has some specified proportion of responsibility for “a student’s learning activities” identified by the performance measures for a particular standard, subject, and grade level.
In addition to the eight purposes noted above, the TSDL system aims to have ”period-by-period tracking of teachers and students every day; including tests, quizzes, projects, homework, classroom participation, or other forms of day-to-day assessments and progress measures”—a level of accountability (I call it surveillance) that is said to be comparable to business practices (TSDL, 2011, “Key Components”). The system will keep current and longitudinal data on teachers and individual students, schools, districts, states, and educators ranging from principals to higher education faculty. The aim is to determine the “best value” investments in education and monitor outcomes, taking into account as many demographic factors as possible, including health records for preschoolers.
This Gates-funded campaign adds resources to the Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems (SLDS) Grant Program, authorized under Title II, Educational Technical Assistance of the ‘‘Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002 H. R. 3801.” The first grants were made in 2005, the same year that the Gates’ Foundation started the parallel Data Quality Campaign. See http://nces.ed.gov/programs/slds/. Since 2006, the U.S. Department of Education has invested over $700 million in the SLDS Grant Program enabling more than forty states to create standardized longitudinal data systems. These are intended to “efficiently and accurately manage, analyze, and use education data, including individual student records” so that districts, schools, and teachers “can make data-driven decisions to improve student learning, as well as facilitate research to increase student achievement and close achievement gaps” (USDE, 2011, Overview). For more see http://nces.ed.gov/programs/slds/
Battelle for Kids is serving as a data warehouse for several states. This organization, initiated by the Ohio Business Roundtable and funded by a $10 million grant from Battelle Memorial Institute, received about $6.5 million from the Bill and Melina Gates Foundation between 2005 and mid-May 2011. The marketing campaign for data gathering is visiable at http://www.tsdl.org/VendorSummit.aspx At this summit, venders tried to figure out how to deal with FERPA.
A graphic for the USDE data system, also called by the Orwellian title ” Total Information Management System” is here: http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/os/technology/plan/2004/edlite-xplan-sdm.html So, the current quest for Big Data is a perversion of the legitimate needs for tracking information about public education, a longstanding misssion of the National Center for Education Statistics.

No that far off topic. MOOCs are International & I saw a story this past week about them now being in Spanish. They’re in HS now. Khan is a MOOC. I think I saw Khan is being used in elementary or maybe middle school.

Orwell got the year wrong in 1984 but the idea lives with gates et. al as the progenitors. We must oppose this on the basis of humanity and decency. Some things should not even be attempted. Have we all lost our collective minds?

Petty disciplinary records are being digitized in daily logs already. Data mining companies already claim to be able to distinguish younger and younger children “at risk” for later behavior adjustment. So, here’s the quandary I have to wrestle with today.

A fifteen year old boy made rude drawings on a friend’s lab paper, and was warned the next infraction would result in a session. A week later,when little play-doh prizes were awarded for periodic table bingo, he made a rude sculpture and created a small sensation by displaying it, uninvited, to classmates. He actually listened seriously to the resulting short (and fierce) disciplinary discussion, and his behavior has improved dramatically. However, he failed to report for his after school teacher session. If his teacher reports that to his dean, the dean will record the nature of the original problem.

If this was your son, would you want a big data consortium to sweep up records of his childhood infractions and monetize them so his education and life-prospects can be digitally personalized for him?

The only thing I’ll say in Gates’ defense is that he is not being dishonest. That’s out of the way.

As a teacher I have access to everything listed above by Iwan S. I have one password to get to it. I can see grade, test score, disciplinary and attendance records for any student in my school. There’s a lot of hyperbole regarding the way in which this will simplify a chaotic access system. It’s an unwarranted justification to allow companies to access records for marketing purposes.

The cult of data and measurement isn’t going to lead to the Shangri-la that Gates envisions because he believes that more data is better. But this isn’t true. I’ve looked at our programs and discovered that nearly all data is noise and / or unreliable. For example, I teach high school upperclassmen who take no state standardized test seriously. They only care about the ACT and those who aren’t going to college (like kids who are mechanics or future chefs) don’t even try there. Those test scores tell me nothing.

Seeing their 4th grade reading scores isn’t exactly helpful either. The trick is to focus on the data that tells a meaningful and reliable story. And much of that data is gleaned through personal interaction. I don’t need Pearson or InBloom to report endless streams of information that I cannot interpret because I have no expertise in data translation.

I can, however, observe my students and provide a brief writing assignment in the first week of a class and get a glimpse of their attitude, level of interest and ability (both communicative and higher level problem solving) pretty quickly. And that’s with 120+ students every term.

State tests – high schoolers don’t care. Pre-test / post-test approach – high schoolers play the game of tanking the pre to make the post look good. They want to avoid remediation and attain praise. (Hasn’t anyone noticed the aggressive sawtooth graphs of pre-test post-test scores of individual students over a five year span?)

“InBloom offers a single middleware layer that hosts student data using Amazon Web Services, with some centralized dashboard-style functions and an API (application programming interface) that would allow start-ups to build education apps, aligned with Common Core standards, that anyone could use.”

I have understood that the weakest cloud hosting is through companies like Amazon. The more that I read about the Internet and security (or lack thereof), the more that I am suspicious about any confidential data that is stored, especially in health care and education.

After all, only $250M was poured into the state longitudinal databases for education with ARRA stimulus funding in 2009.

In healthcare, over $19 B went into health IT. The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) is the section that deals with many of the health information communication and technology provisions including Subpart D – Privacy.

It certainly is not reassuring that some of the data largest breaches of 500 or more posted at the Office of Civil Rights (as a provision of HITECH) are from state agencies.
Nearly 800,000 individuals were affected when a hacker accessed records at the Utah Dept. of Health because of a weak password.

Security
The biggest question most have with Cloud Computing is will it be Safe?
Answer: No
Reason why is everything that Cloud Computing is based on is mechanical, although it seems virtual. The Safety of the data (information), is only as Safe as the will and determination of the individual that wants to have at it.

In Bloom is a nightmare. As I’ve posted before I went to a meeting about it last year and it was a very creepy, Orwellian type of software they were pitching (and at a fevered pitch). They had 4 teacher who had been using it for a year trying to convince us it was useful but even they didn’t sound all that sure about how it was being used in their school.
But my son and I could see right away was it’s use was, it’s for marketing to and tracking children from pre-school on up. Your entire life would be recorded, as though teachers have the time to enter every little bit of data on students that the tests don’t record. There would be no such thing as a youthful indiscretion…kids make mistakes they don’t need to be recorded for life. The whole thing reminds me of that Tom Cruise movie, Minority Report, where they stop crimes before they happen…if you were a bad kid, no reforming you, you’re on track for a military career (not that that is bad but it’s not for everyone) or looked at first for certain types of crime.
Rupert Murdoch has a pretty shady record when it comes to deal with people’s personal information, why would we hand it over to him now!!!